Penny Arcade: Kickstarting a Rip-off?

[Neon Ignition]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-10-penny-arcade-responds-to-kickstarter-concerns

Things have been heating up for Penny Arcade ever since:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575109064/penny-arcade-sells-out

The 'Penny Arcade Sells Out' kickstarter campaign was launched. The aim is to raise $250,000 to remove adverts from the Penny Arcade site. Now, the $250,000 doesn't actually remove all advertising, merely just the Leaderboard on the homepage. Further goal points extend the reach of the ads ommissions as follows:



With plenty time to go it looks like they will meet the minimum however criticism has come their way that they are abusing the nature of Kickstarter. Also, some consider the adverts on the site to be a 'seal of approval' from the site for that game and without them it not only diminishes the experience (though Gabe says this will merely move to the news discussions) but also sets a bad precedent for Kickstarter and how the site goes about its business in the longer term in terms of funding when advertiser ties are cut and fans stop stumping the bill. There have been accusations that they are making users pay so they can do less work, which they counter by saying not having to deal with advertisers will mean they have more time to spend on the site itself.

Is this an inappropriate use of Kickstarter? Or should more sites try this avenue?

[Kaido]

Hmmm it doesn't fit well with the kickstarter paradigm, but it almost does. It's not something I would pay for and it's annoying that it will take attention away from real projects.

I/They should make a new site and call it KickBlockPlus or AdKicker or something...

[ETC]

$1.4 million who are they kidding

[briareos_kerensky]

$1.4 million who are they kidding

The Order of the Stick reached $1.2 million for its reprint drive (goal was 58k) so it's possible to reach this kind of sum.

But to get rid of advertisment from their webpage? I genuinely hope this fails.

[ETC]

I kinda meant $1.4 million just to remove the advertising is taking the piss is it not. I bet Charles wishes he got a hundredth of that for advertising on here (instead of the bag of chocolate buttons and couple of bags of monster munch we probably get )

[chopemon]

It costs nothing to install adblock.

Banner adverts have been proven to be a useless form of advertising so they are asking a money to remove something that shouldn't exist in the first place.

P.s. I disable adblock on this site.

[Daragon]

****ing hypocrites.

They talk about people abusing the Child's play charity to emotionally blackmail Bioware into creating a new ending for Mass Effect 3 and what do we see them doing here? Abusing a system that clearly shouldn't exist for such a purpose.

The ads are hardly intrusive and surely the guys who run PA are rich enough to get rid of them themselves if they were THAT much of a problem.

[Decider-VT]

They might as well say that they want to introduce subscriptions.

This is also a pretty big kick in the teeth for their advertisers.

[englishbob]

As with everything, it gets abused. I care not for PA's site (don't think I've ever been there, although seen the comic strips posted around).

Bottom line is, if you donate to this your a massive tool. The KLF burnt a ?million in the name of art. Was it art? Penny Arcade fleece Kickstartets. Is it worthwhile? Its in the eye of the beholder.

[ETC]

$1000 to be added to someone's xbl friend list for a year, yeah right ok then who the hell pays for this ****. Just seen the top ask $100k to be made into a comic strip $100k seriously pretty sure you could freelance a marvel artist or the like for a lot less they are just taking the piss out of fans, gues last years PAX didn't make them any $

[Daragon]

Their $5000 rewards sound a bit ****. Who'd want lunch with a group of nobodies for 5k?

Who'd want to intern (something that is usually done on a voluntry basis) in some dingy office for a whole 7.5k?

Are these honestly the best rewards these people can come up with? I'd expect something made of pure gold for that kind of money, or at the very least my travel and accomodation paid for!

[Neon Ignition]

My guess is $450,000 will be 'We'll make our comics funny'

[Decider-VT]

Who'd want to intern (something that is usually done on a voluntry basis) in some dingy office for a whole 7.5k?

I'd laugh so hard if Tim Buckley bought this.

[eastyy]

can you add another thing to the poll....."i think its as good idea but wont support it"

[parkinho]

Don't think I've ever heard of them, but what a bunch of jebends.